I've seen bits and pieces of the show, but i just can't watch. She's annoying, and extremely stupid.

I think the show hurts her more than it helps. I do like your theory of the public knowing her though, that is a positive. But she really comes off as a bigger dumbbass, and not quite so "rouge" as she led us all to believe. I get the impression she's never actually hunted before.

SPA is, at it's core, about branding and marketing Sarah's snow-white American-ness, what with all the huntin' and fishin' and talkin' and forced folksiness, thusly setting her up as the perfect white foil to black/Muslim/other Obama.

and when she guts a halibut or guns down a caribou for fun you realize that this ill-informed yet attractive woman, who supposedly reinforces the best of what "regular, non-elite" white America likes thinks of itself, is actually the terrifying epitome of it's absolute worst qualities -- proudly ignorant, aggressively provincial, and possessed with an inexplicable lust for blood letting.

SPA is, at it's core, about branding and marketing Sarah's snow-white American-ness, what with all the huntin' and fishin' and talkin' and forced folksiness, thusly setting her up as the perfect white foil to black/Muslim/other Obama.

and when she guts a halibut or guns down a caribou for fun you realize that this ill-informed yet attractive woman, who supposedly reinforces the best of what "regular, non-elite" white America likes thinks of itself, is actually the terrifying epitome of it's absolute worst qualities -- proudly ignorant, aggressively provincial, and possessed with an inexplicable lust for blood letting.

I think the show is meant to fetishize as much as normalize. Remember Camille Paglia's starry-eyed slobbering over Palin's "can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism"? It's a novelty. I'm more bothered by her spiteful-petty tendencies than her "blood lust"--so she likes to kill it 'n' grill it, so what, so do millions of other Americans, some of them standup people, some not. "Provincialism," yes, that's bad when it's crude xenophobia masquerading as community-mindedness, although, many people who spend their lives moving from one suburban 'community' or gentrifying 'neighborhood' to another have more in common with that agenda in practice than they'd like to admit. Can't disagree on the obvious ill-preparedness, though I still think that's more to do with the age-old American question of whether the President should be equal parts bureaucrat and visionary, or a totemistic Clan MPatriarch, than with whether being well-spoken makes you an "Other" per se. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar, that's not why people liked him.

The fake folksiness is just bait, and Obama shouldn't take it. In reality, it's pretty damned insulting to suggest rural Americans are incapable of "relating to" or evaluating a Honolulu-bred President who bodysurfs and shoots hoops rather than hunting and fishing; we all have our own regional inflections and perspectives, that's a strength not a weakness. He should point that out and move on undeterred, not play into their hands with snotty-sounding invocations of dumb-redneck stereotypes.

The fake folksiness is just bait, and Obama shouldn't take it. In reality, it's pretty damned insulting to suggest rural Americans are incapable of "relating to" or evaluating a Honolulu-bred President who bodysurfs and shoots hoops rather than hunting and fishing; we all have our own regional inflections and perspectives, that's a strength not a weakness. He should point that out and move on undeterred, not play into their hands with snotty-sounding invocations of dumb-redneck stereotypes.

i'm not terribly concerned about sounding snooty given the shocking amount of americans who believe the President is a Muslim. just for starters.

i'm not feeling especially forgiving towards those who buy into her blatant attempts at mythmaking, nor those who are swayed by her clearly racially-charged attempts at making clear, almost point-by-point cultural distinctions between herself as down-home and authentic, right down to her using the immense 49th state to showcase it's difference from the lower 48th, and most especially our 50th. there's a celebration of ignorance that Palin represents, and her gleeful fabulism and vicious victimhood at the hands of "elites" is hardly lapped up by those who vote for Democrats. in fact, her appeal is hardly lapped up by most mainstream Republicans, which is why many are deathly terrified of her 2012 campaign. there's no way to attack her, because she's quite deftly into any attack upon her as an attack upon not just her children but all rural women, everywhere. one only has to work through the leading GOP blogs to find numerous instances where Our Sarah has been wronged.

is it wrong to paint all of rural America with such a brush? of course, but this is more akin to most-men-aren't-rapists-but-most-rapists-are-men type of thinking -- most-rural-americans-wont-fall-for-her-bullshit-but-most-who-fall-for-her-bullshit-are-rural-americans, and there's enough of them to make the GOP primary hers to lose.

SPA is setting the stage for her candidacy, one that will run on pure cultural id and what will amount to racial self-identification against the other in the oval office.

Hey, be careful when messing with Willow Palin on the internet. Sharp tongue on that one. NSFW.

while the above is a parody, there was some Facebook back and forth where Willow called someone a "faggot" and "gay" and "fat" because they said the show sucked. someone who, btw, has Crones Disease and has to take steroids every day and that causes him to gain weight.

and you know that Sarah spun this as someone was saying mean things about Trigg.

for real.

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People probably think that my greatest frustration is the lies that are told in the tabloids and on hateful blogs full of anonymous sources about my family … and there are constant everyday lies that we have to read that are out there in the public. But my family and I…thick skin…we can take it, you know…we can take what the haters say despite the fact that there’s injustice in the situation.

I mean, look at the other day. Willow, finally, my 16 year old, she had had it up to here with somebody saying very, very hateful things about the family and saying mean things about her little brother Trig, and Willow finally responded and she used a bad word when she responded in defense of her family. And her response became national news, even hard news copy it turned into, so that’s ridiculous and I had to explain to her, “Willow, there is no justice here but you have to just zip your lip and let’s move forward.”

please, click on the link and show me, where on Facebook did someone make fun of Trigg?

i'm not terribly concerned about sounding snooty given the shocking amount of americans who believe the President is a Muslim.
........
is it wrong to paint all of rural America with such a brush? of course, but this is more akin to most-men-aren't-rapists-but-most-rapists-are-men type of thinking -- most-rural-americans-wont-fall-for-her-bullshit-but-most-who-fall-for-her-bullshit-are-rural-americans, and there's enough of them to make the GOP primary hers to lose.

You aren't running for President. I was thinking of Obama's "they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...to explain their frustrations" gaffe, not anything you said. It doesn't matter what you or I think about what exactly Palin's up to, or who exactly is gung-ho for her and why. Although, if enough of a blogosphere mantra gets going that everyone looking for an alternative to Obama is a pinheaded troglodyte enslaved by primitive racial fears, then he will pay the price, whatever it is. I don't understand not being concerned about that. You are trusting that rank-and-file Republicans and conservative-leaning independents will "see through" her? Fine, then let her crash and burn by exposing her own phoniness to those the SPA persona means to appeal to; don't feed the sense of shared victimhood if you really believe it's there.

I don't understand not being concerned about that. You are trusting that rank-and-file Republicans and conservative-leaning independents will "see through" her? Fine, then let her crash and burn by exposing her own phoniness to those the SPA persona means to appeal to; don't feed the sense of shared victimhood if you really believe it's there.

and this is what strikes fear in the heart of the rank-and-file -- literally, *any* criticism of her is a criticism of Trig (metaphorically). she's proven herself, so far, to be fairly adept at this kind of media judo. remember how (O')Biden didn't make eye contact or address her in the VP debate? that's really the only way to deal with her politically, but how do you get through the primaries with it's myriad debates by ignoring her? it's impossible to do, which is why the nomination may likely be hers to lose at this point, in a crowded field that will be dominated by a Republican Base who's more and more willing to eat up anything that affirms their cultural identification.

you're right in that what Obama absolutely needs to do is ignore her for as long as possible, though given the exposure i've had to rural America via de facto in-laws, Obama's marks, while absolutely politically silly, aren't all that far off the mark. there's an enormous amount of insecurity, and it's not just about jobs, and Palin presents an aspirational fantasy, like any good celebrity.

as for the troglodyte ... there are worse memes out there, i suppose, and in the end, my hunch is that the independents (who, as always, will determine the election) will find her gleeful ignorance repugnant enough, and her supporters too embarrassing, that Obama himself will be just fine. and the GOP knows this very well.

Although, if enough of a blogosphere mantra gets going that everyone looking for an alternative to Obama is a pinheaded troglodyte enslaved by primitive racial fears, then he will pay the price, whatever it is. I don't understand not being concerned about that. You are trusting that rank-and-file Republicans and conservative-leaning independents will "see through" her?

You don't have to trust that the voters, no matter how stupid, will see through anything.

The US is a plutocracy and anyone who fails to see that isn't paying attention. Day after day we are shown that the rich, the financial industry, and so on, own this country and essentially run it to the detriment of everyone else. And if there is one certainty about this voting bloc it's that they will never and I mean NEVER let a loose cannon like Sarah into their midst. They have all the power and for all the wrong they have wrought, they will do us a favour on this one thing.

she's proven herself, so far, to be fairly adept at this kind of media judo. remember how (O')Biden didn't make eye contact or address her in the VP debate? that's really the only way to deal with her politically, but how do you get through the primaries with it's myriad debates by ignoring her?

I bet Huck's not afraid to look her in the eye. Don't know if he'll run though, and unlike her he's never had any foothold beyond hardcore evangelical conservatives (not fiscally conservative enough, for starters).

I tend to agree with anitram that the 'Establishment' GOP is too powerful for "media judo" alone (great phrase, BTW) to carry Palin through the primaries--assuming she runs. However, they'd need to get enough Republican primary voters lined up behind someone else to force her out, and it's not clear at this point who that would be. Romney has the most total funds at this point (though Palin's PAC haul dwarfs his), but the Tea Partiers loathe him.

Quote:

you're right in that what Obama absolutely needs to do is ignore her for as long as possible, though given the exposure i've had to rural America via de facto in-laws, Obama's marks, while absolutely politically silly, aren't all that far off the mark. there's an enormous amount of insecurity, and it's not just about jobs, and Palin presents an aspirational fantasy, like any good celebrity.

Rural voters are usually around 9-10% of the GOP vote in the general election; anyone who appeals only to them would be doomed, even in the primaries. But they've always been a tempting canvas for national politicians to project their visions of "Main Street America" onto, and this can be a coded way of invoking "fantasies" one couldn't state otherwise, like effective re-segregation for example (that is, if you overlook that a fifth and counting of rural Americans are nonwhite). Although, to be fair to Palin, that particular potential subtext couldn't possibly mean to her quite what it does to your "de facto in-laws"--which isn't to say she wouldn't knowingly exploit it anyway. Point being, by figuratively patting your DFILs on the head, she's also sending (multiple) messages to people in the 'burbs and the cities who share some of their "insecurities," but can't be called out as such directly.

boiled down to a simple choice, which is all an election is anyway, the Palin narrative is going to be Real America vs. The Elites. upon all that can be placed any number of projections that can be as specific to one's particular locale as one would like.

however, the added bonus of Palin -- for her supporters -- she's made her politics personal. in fact, there are no politics. at all. for all the screaming about how her family is under attack from themedia, no other politician has as ruthlessly exploited her children as she has. name me another politician who has publicly feuded with the teenage father of her grandson, waved a baby with Down Syndrome around at book signings, put one on "Dancing With the Stars" (and concocted some crazy story about how she and Todd, like, jumped in the campervan and drove to L.A.), and then constructed and entire reality series around her family.

what Palin presents is a total absence of any knowledge beyond cultural identification and, because they're all really beautiful and now very wealthy, a strange female fantasy of a Red State MILF who multitasks better than you ever could while rocking a pair of leather boots. she's, at her core, a character better suited for The Real Housewives of Anchorage, and she lives in a world of predetermined story lines, imposed drama, and storyboarded character arcs that she's edited as skillfully as any editor for any reality TV show.

it's not so much that she's phony but that she's a media creation, someone impossible to imagine before the wild popularity of Survivor and the ascent of reality TV. (hell, her complaints are no different than, say, offed Housewive Danielle Staub -- "it's the editing! *they* make me look bad! that's not what really happened!")